{"id":1615,"date":"2025-11-26T10:24:25","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T08:24:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lbscience.org\/en\/2025\/11\/22\/bats-hunt-migratory-birds\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T23:00:33","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T21:00:33","slug":"bats-hunt-migratory-birds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lbscience.org\/en\/2025\/11\/26\/bats-hunt-migratory-birds\/","title":{"rendered":"Bats Hunt Migratory Birds"},"content":{"rendered":"

For years, scientists found only clues suggesting that bats prey on songbirds\u2014for example, feathers in bat droppings and bird wings discovered beneath hunting grounds. But the full picture was missing: Where does this happen? How do bats reach swift prey flying high above the ground? And how do they handle prey that can weigh nearly half as much as the bat itself\u2014all without landing?<\/p>\n

To answer these questions, researchers tracked greater noctule bats (Nyctalus lasiopterus<\/em>) in southern Spain, along one of the busiest migration corridors in the world\u2014the route from Europe to Africa over the Strait of Gibraltar, a bird migration bottleneck similar to Israel\u2019s. The team attached tiny tracking tags to 14 individuals and recorded flight altitude, body acceleration (wingbeat rate and strength), and the ultrasonic echolocation calls the bats use for \u201cseeing\u201d with sound. In addition, fecal samples were analyzed by DNA sequencing, bird wings found in the area were X-rayed for predation marks, and some even carried the predator\u2019s DNA.<\/p>\n

The international research team, led by Dr. Laura Stidsholt and Dr. Elena Tena-L\u00f3pez, published its findings in the prestigious journal Science<\/em> [1].<\/p>\n

The researchers discovered that the bats do not merely eat songbirds: they detect them at high altitude, pursue them in exceptionally long sprints, seize them, bite off the wings to reduce drag, and then consume the prey in midair\u2014unlike owls or other predators that land after capture.<\/p>\n

Two fully documented hunting events involved climbs of several hundred meters (in one case up to ~1.2 km!) and more than forty \u201cterminal buzz\u201d calls (like a fighter jet locking onto a target). The recordings also captured 21 distress calls from the prey followed by 23 consecutive minutes of chewing in flight. Based on the calls, the victim was a European robin (Erithacus rubecula<\/em>). For comparison, a greater noctule bat typically weighs about 60\u201370 g (wingspan 40\u201346 cm), whereas a European robin weighs about 16\u201322 g\u2014meaning the prey can reach one-third of the predator\u2019s mass or more, an exceptional ratio for an insect-eating bat.<\/p>\n

How unusual is bird hunting compared with the bats\u2019 regular hunting routine? Of 611 documented hunting attempts, 609 were typical \u201cinsect\u201d chases\u2014short pursuits at low altitude (median height ~53 m), a few buzz calls, and brief chewing, exactly as expected for small prey. The two bird-predation events stood out dramatically in intensity and duration: faster, stronger wingbeats and tight maneuvering after a single target for tens of seconds to nearly three minutes.<\/p>\n

The bat completes the capture close to the ground, likely using its feet and tail membrane, delivers a lethal bite, then quickly removes the wings to disable the prey, enabling in-flight feeding. Consistent bite patterns in the X-rays and the predator\u2019s DNA on recovered wings support this scenario.<\/p>\n

Fecal samples indicate that the behavior is more common than the tag data alone suggest: on some spring nights, up to one-third of the greater noctules consumed birds, even though full documentation with tags is naturally rare.<\/p>\n

This raises an intriguing question: How can a bird that evades diurnal raptors fall prey to a bat at night? First, songbirds rely mainly on vision, an advantage that is limited in darkness. Second, the greater noctule enjoys an almost \u201cprivate channel\u201d because songbirds detect frequencies above ~10 kHz poorly. The bat\u2019s ultrasonic echolocation calls (above 20 kHz) are therefore nearly inaudible to them. The bat does not \u201cswitch modes\u201d when hunting birds: the call characteristics resemble those used for insect hunting, but the chase is longer and more intense to keep up with a swift, high-enduring songbird that often reacts with sharp shifts in altitude.<\/p>\n

On migration nights during spring and fall, a vast river of biomass\u2014migrating songbirds\u2014flows overhead, largely untapped by most predators. The combination of long-range echolocation, sustained aerial acceleration, and an efficient prey-processing technique allows the greater noctule to exploit a resource with virtually no competition. Open questions include whether insectivorous bats at other major migration corridors have evolved\u2014or will evolve\u2014similar strategies, and what long-term impact, if any, this might have in the evolutionary arms race.<\/p>\n

Hebrew editing: Smadar Raban
\nEnglish editing: Elee Shimshoni<\/p>\n

\n

References:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Original article in Science<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  2. Long-distance navigation using echolocation<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. How bats hunt insect swarms<\/a><\/li>\n
  4. Drunk bats<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    For years, scientists found only clues suggesting that bats prey on songbirds\u2014for example, feathers in bat droppings and bird wings discovered beneath hunting grounds. But the full picture was missing: Where does this happen? How do bats reach swift prey flying high above the ground? And how do they handle prey that can weigh nearly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":1617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biology","category-zoology"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBats Hunt Migratory Birds - Little, Big Science<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lbscience.org\/en\/2025\/11\/26\/bats-hunt-migratory-birds\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bats Hunt Migratory Birds - Little, Big Science\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For years, scientists found only clues suggesting that bats prey on songbirds\u2014for example, feathers in bat droppings and bird wings discovered beneath hunting grounds. 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